This article covers the most common risks and pitfalls encountered during and after a d6 Finance implementation handover. Knowing these risks in advance helps administrators avoid errors that are difficult to correct once transactions are live. It is for school finance administrators.

Finance > Implementation Handover

Risk 1 — Payment reference confusion (family code)

When Schools migrate from a previous system to d6, their payment reference changes. d6 uses a family code as the payment reference. During the handover period, the old reference is displayed in brackets after the new d6 family code to help schools match payments. 

• What can go wrong: Parents continue using their old reference on bank payments. Overnight EFT batches arrive with old references and takes longer to allocated by schools.

• What to do: Spot-check your bank statements in the first two to three months after go-live. Flag any payments with old references and manually allocate them to the correct family account. Remind parents in your first d6 statement to update their payment reference to their new family code.

Risk 2 — Families merged or split during migration

During migration, some families from the previous system may have been merged into a single d6 family record, or a single family may have been split into two. If these changes are not accounted for before Journal 1 is posted, the opening balance for affected families will be incorrect or the wrong balance will be incorrectly allocated.

• What to do: Reconcile your full family list from the previous system against d6 before posting Journal 1. Confirm that merged families have the correct combined balance, and that split families each have the correct individual balance.

Common pitfalls after go-live

• Posting Journal 1 too early: Journal 1 must only be posted once all learner opening balances and cashbook balances are verified. Posting early and then discovering errors requires complex corrections.

• Two undeposited funds accounts: Having two undeposited funds accounts splits receipts across both accounts and makes reconciliation inconsistent. There should be exactly one.

• Treating Speedpoint as a bank account: Speedpoint (card machine) receipts are not directly deposited to your bank. A manual receipt needs to be made against the specific bank and then matched on your bank statement. Setting up a Speedpoint cashbook as a separate bank account causes double-counting.

• Forgetting to link new learners: New learners who enrol after your go-live date must be linked to a payment option on the same day they are captured. Linking them late results in missed billing months that must be manually corrected.

• Skipping the monthly reconciliation: Running the bank reconciliation monthly keeps your cashbooks accurate. Skipping even one month makes subsequent reconciliations significantly more complex to resolve.
  

• When an implementer creates Journal 1 and finds differences, the difference will be posted to the suspense account. It is the School's responsibility to find those differences and move the money out of the suspense to the correct accounts. 

Frequently asked questions

A parent says their payment was not allocated. What is most likely the cause?

The most likely cause in the first few months after go-live is that the parent used their old payment reference instead of their new d6 family code. Check your bank statement for their name or account number, find the unallocated payment, and manually allocate it to the correct family. Then contact the parent and ask them to update their payment reference to their d6 family code.

How do I handle a Speedpoint payment in d6?

Capture the card payment as a receipt to the learner account, the receipt must go to the bank account where the monies will reflect when you import the bank statement. When the bulk Speedpoint deposit appears on your bank statement (usually daily or next business day), import the statement and bulk match all those receipts that make up that total on the bank statement. This correctly matches the receipts to the bank deposit without creating a separate Speedpoint cashbook.

I missed last month's bank reconciliation. What should I do?

Run last month's reconciliation first before processing the current month. Work backwards through any unreconciled items, match them to your bank statement, and investigate any discrepancies. Then run the current month. Attempting to reconcile multiple months simultaneously is very difficult — always clear one month before moving to the next.